plawolf
Lieutenant General
I would not go as far as to say this is actually war prepare.
China has been extraordinarily open data access to foreigners, and I think that was part naively and part trying to convince western leaders China is not trying to be a threat to them.
This is an end of that era of hope and wishful thinking and a sign that China is preparing to batten down the hatches.
All of this is definitely prep work for going into active war preparation, but we are still not quite there yet.
If and when China does go into actual full war preparation mode, things will change incredibly quickly and production will also ramp up very rapidly. But I don’t think the outside world or even the overwhelming majority of China’s own citizens will notice anything out of the ordinary for quite some time after the shift has already happened.
Steps like this are designed to make it easier for China to change gears when needed, to be able to do so quicker and more effectively, and also to minimise warning for foreign hostile powers.
If and when China decides to kick off AR, it won’t half arse it like the Russians did Ukraine. If anything, China will massively over-prepare, like the star student aiming to get national first in the GaoKao exams.
China will shift a significant portion of its manufacturing capacity to wartime production even before the first shot is fired. Cutting off detailed economic data will prevent outside powers from noticing such changes easily from open sourced data. Cutting that data well in advanced is so you don’t tip your hand needlessly.
